


Cheers

by Elisexyz



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Garcy centric, Jessica Logan Isn't A Rittenhouse Agent, Mentions of canonical character death(s), Pre-Relationship, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21884821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: It’s not that Flynn hates Christmas, it’s just that Christmas is for family, and he doesn’t have one of those anymore, does he?
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	Cheers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Celtrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celtrose/gifts).



> Hello, I'm your secret santa! Merry Christmas! <3  
>    
>  This story is set in an AU in which Jessica isn't Rittenhouse, so everyone is just living together and trying to save the world, without the events of Chinatown unfolding. Just so they can all have nice things for a change LOL.  
>  Everyone besides Lucy and Flynn is either mentioned or appears briefly.  
>    
>  Enjoy! (hopefully <3)

They are being unusually loud.

Granted, he lives crammed in a bunker with all too many people, so he hasn’t had many options besides getting used to bathroom lines, constant voices around and at least one person somehow being always in the kitchen at any given hour. He has made his peace with it, and he can even admit to himself that some days it’s good, to be unable to forget that he isn’t alone.

 _Today_ , though—

Denise has showed up with boxes full of Christmas decorations. The place looks grim and gloomy and they could all use a bit of holiday spirit, she said.

She had them pick up something to put in their bedrooms, and Garcia snatched away the first thing he saw, some kind of elf with a golden bell attached, just so he wouldn’t have to justify his Grinch tendencies. With the excuse of setting it up in his bedroom, he slipped away and disappeared for a good portion of the day.

He can hear laughs, some sounds that make him wonder if they are trying to tear the place down or what, and at times he almost wishes for the alarm to go off and drag him to another mission.

It’s not that he _hates_ Christmas, he just—Christmas is for family. And he doesn’t have one of those anymore, does he?

He only has a bunch of ex-enemies, most of which tolerate him at best, and call him crazy but he doesn’t feel like cheering with them about how amazing this time of year is. The last time he celebrated he still had Lorena and Iris: they had dinner with her brother, Stiv, and her parents. It was so perfect that he can only wish he hadn’t spent half the time being cranky because of the long drive and pretending not to find Lorena’s overly friendly father way too _much_ to deal with.

(He’s a good man, just _loud_ and so _happy_ —he can imagine that changed. After.)

It’s ridiculous that he has a time machine and yet the only thing he can do is wish for a way back to that time. He wants it so bad it’s tearing him apart from the inside out.

He should learn how to pilot. Then he could drive himself back to happier times, go mad with happy thoughts in his head—he could blow his whole quest to hell, and sometimes that seems a terribly good option, because he’s just _tired_.

It seems that the holiday cheer is one of those things with the power to drain him.

When the knock at his door comes, he isn’t doing anything worthwhile. Mostly he has been pacing around, emptying drawers only to clean the mess up, and none of it kept his thoughts at bay.

“Yeah?” he calls out, without thinking, and he winces at how tired it sounds.

Lucy comes in with a glass at hand and an hesitant look on her face. She usually doesn’t knock, but then again, he usually isn’t so blatant about locking himself in his room to avoid group activities.

“I, uh—” She takes up the glass in his general direction. “I brought you a drink.”

Her eyes skim around the room, maybe looking for something amiss, or something broken in a rage fit, and perhaps she notices that it’s even cleaner than usual instead. Maybe he _should_ try breaking things, next time.

(He sincerely hopes that by next year he’ll have fixed this mess, or at least made peace with lonely Christmases. Though the latter is probably more than he deserves.)

“Thank you,” he says, coming up with the most decent smile he has in store at the moment and taking a few steps forward to grab the glass. He almost spills it over when he unceremoniously drops on his bed, but he manages.

Lucy hesitates only for a moment, shifting on her feet, before she joins him, swinging her legs a little. She keeps her eyes on her feet for a few seconds, then she turns to him. “So,” she begins, conversationally. “Bad day?”

He snorts, feeling a sudden urge to spill his guts pushing the words up his throat. “Something like that,” he concedes, a frail attempt at holding back, because she was probably partaking in the laughs that have been bothering him so much, and Lucy has had a very hard year, way too hard for him to ruin her holidays with his grim thoughts—yet, when he dares meeting her eyes, she’s staring at him with gentle expectation, silently prompting him to continue, and he’s simply too much of a selfish bastard to say no.

“I’m not really feeling the holiday cheer, that’s all,” he ends up adding, straightening up a little with a sigh. “I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s fun.”

“Well, honestly, I’m not feeling it much either,” Lucy confesses, after a few moments. “I suppose I get it. Do you, uh, would you like to talk about it, perhaps?”

“Not really,” he’s quick to say, finally taking a big sip of whatever it is that she brought him, somehow half-hoping to make everything disappear in the glass. He regrets not even _asking_ about its contents when he pretty much chokes on it, his eyes watering and his throat going up in flames.

“Are you okay?” she asks, a little amused, as he tries to survive a coughing fit.

“What the hell _is_ this stuff?” he eventually manages to choke out, wide-eyed.

She grins. “Mason made it. He said it’s fruit punch?”

Garcia eyes the glass with so much mistrust it’s a true wonder it doesn’t shatter out of shame. “Trust me, there is more Brandy in here than literally anything else.”

She chuckles, turning away for a moment as she pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. “He’s trying things out,” she explains, lightly. “For the Christmas dinner.”

Oh, great, so they are planning to have one of those. He should probably at the very least cook, it’d be tragic if they all died of food poisoning because of Wyatt’s ill attempts at making something edible. Or, even worse, Lucy’s – he loves her so much he sometimes can hardly stand it, but she and cooking _really_ don’t mix; Lorena wasn’t that great at it either, so perhaps he has a type.

“Maybe he could use your input?” Lucy suggests, startling him out of his thoughts. He’s taken by surprise enough that he doesn’t realize he has met her eyes until she’s prompting: “You could join us, let him know what you think.”

She looks so _hopeful_ for a yes that saying no doesn’t feel like a valuable option anymore.

“You think I should do us all a favour and not let him poison our drinks?” he asks, his tone light and a small smile bubbling at his lips, enough to let her know that yeah, he could give it a try.

She must get the message, because her shoulders seem to relax a little, and she offers him the biggest smile before she answers: “Yeah, we’d all be very grateful.”

When they walk out, arms brushing together and the door to his room closing behind them in a way that sounds scarily definitive, he almost feels the need to usher right back, as the sounds get louder and he almost trips over a stray ball, rolling down the hallway.

Jessica appears a few moments later, chasing after it.

“Oh, you’ve joined us!” she greets him, with a friendly smile. At first, Flynn kinda disliked her by reflex, because she was always around Wyatt and Lucy could barely look at them both in the eye, but that lasted just about two minutes deep in conversation with her.

She’s definitely too good for Wyatt. 

“Yeah, Lucy is persuasive,” he smiles back, picking up the ball for her just in time before Jiya’s voice echoes down the hallway.

“Flynn?” she calls out, all too enthusiastically, coming towards them with a giant garland in her arms, trailing after her as she walks. “Oh, thank _god_!” she lets out, very theatrically. “We have about a hundred things for you to hang, that one rusty ladder we have—totally unsafe, Wyatt tried it and he almost died.”

He doesn’t have much of a choice, really: he gets swapped away, Jiya somehow dragging him around, and before he knows what’s happening he is being greeted by the biggest mess he has ever had the misfortune of laying his eyes on.

The couch has disappeared under boxes and ornaments, Wyatt is currently standing on a chair and trying to stretch himself far enough to hang a garland, in such a precarious position that if it were literally anybody else Flynn would be terrified for their life, Rufus is standing nearby, his hands up like he’s expecting to have to break his friend’s fall any second as he tries to instruct him on where to hang what, there are stockings scattered on the ground, a giant mess of tangled Christmas lights stashed in a corner—

“You should close your mouth,” Lucy elbows him, amused.

He reflexively obeys.

Jesus _Christ_ , what a mess. He remembers that, when it was time to get out the Christmas decorations, the Flynn household wasn’t particularly presentable either, but this is a whole new level of disastrous.

“The silver lining is that it’s a mess big enough that you physically don’t have time to think bad thoughts,” Lucy suggests, offering a gentle smile. “It’s been working for me,” she adds then, with a small shrug.

He can’t help smiling back, an overwhelming wave of affection rushing through him as he looks at that wonderful woman who came to pry him away from his own grim thoughts, just because she cares.

He doesn’t think he has any right to enjoy this, not when, because of him, Lorena and Iris can’t anymore, but maybe—if it makes Lucy happy, it might be worth a try anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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